NYC04LA195 · Piper J3C-65
Piper J3C-65 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Brokenstraw Airport (P15) to Brokenstraw Airport (P15)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC04LA195
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper J3C-65
- Aircraft type
- Piper J3
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N7068H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Brokenstraw Airport (P15), Pittsfield, PATo Brokenstraw Airport (P15)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Landing · landing roll
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Loss of control on ground/water
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, annual inspection, inadequate
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot preflighted the airplane, boarded, and then departed runway 27 for left closed traffic. He noticed no problems with the airplane during taxi, takeoff, approach, or landing until the tail wheel touched down, and he lost directional control. The airplane departed the runway, struck a hangar and came to rest; the pilot secured the fuel selector, and exited without injury. Examination of the wreckage revealed numerous airworthy issues, to include the tailwheel assembly bolt being installed upside down, and binding of the tailwheel. The airplane received an annual inspection about 6 flight hours prior to the accident, on June 28, 2004. According to Federal Aviation Regulations, the mechanic that performed the annual inspection was required to inspect the tailwheel assembly prior to returning the airplane to service.
Probable cause
Improper installation of the tailwheel assembly and the inadequate annual inspection which resulted in a loss of directional control during landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC04LA195
- Event ID
- 20040928X01500
- Case number
- NYC04LA195
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 14685837cbcbf82e669c70d192d394fbcb6111d3f2623bc895b41bfffc88447a; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:51:06.640Z.